Editor,
National security issues are myriad from cyber warfare, space warfare to the threat of a dirty bomb but the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) has always been a preferred weapon of choice for high profile terror organizations such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and Al-Shabaab. These IEDs, which can be crafted using home-made or military grade explosives, are cheap and simple to manufacture.
In Meghalaya from small to medium intensity explosions have always indicated the lack of vigilant intelligence among security services, whether it be HUMINT or SIGINT. Are we at war with domestic enemies not foreign anymore? Porous borders and the crisis of unemployment add to the problem setting a fuse for the disadvantage in spreading terror and mayhem, the state is currently overburdened with the drug crisis and attacks like these may give way to a virulent form of narco-terrorism.
What is needed are a fusion of different government agencies such as police, army to create a counter-IED public awareness campaign, regulate and monitor the flow of precursors like fertilizers along borders. In ‘Painting the Sand’- One Man’s fight against the Taliban Bomb Makers of Helmand by Kim Hughes recounts that the search and defusing explosives is a battle of wits.
Christopher Gatphoh
Laitkor Rngi,
Shillong-10
